Beppu

It is rare that you find those things in life, those things that you love, that you save money for, that you seek out no matter where you go.  For me, getting naked with a bunch of strangers in hot water is one of those things.  I love it.  I cherish it.  I writhe around in an almost religious fervor thinking about it.  Hm, perhaps writhe isn’t the correct word for talking about bathing in public.  Or maybe it is.

Nevertheless, it was inevitable that in Japan, a land known for its outdoor hot springs, I might have a problem.  It was also inevitable that the one place I really wanted to go to in Kyushu was not the historically significant Nagasaki, or the big castle/horse eating mecca of Kagoshima, but the tiny onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu. 

Believe me, after a month of farming, you’d be wanting a bath too.  Or four or five.  You know, just to make sure.

So I went there, and had several baths, none of which were photographed because that’s rude and wrong and I would never do that (although, I think my fellow WWOOFer Angelica may have taken a picture of me at an onsen so if any pictures of me taking a nap naked at an onsen pop up, you know why). But what was really neat, and I failed to capture it well on camera,  was looking out over the town in the morning. There are so many onsens and natural hot springs, the entire town seems to be steaming.